Tanya Mirza
Aarohi Banerjee stepped out of the Yellow Line metro at Chawri Bazaar, her DSLR slung across her shoulder, and the scent of old Delhi wrapped around her like a memory. The alleys of Chandni Chowk felt alive — bursting with honking rickshaws, the cry of vendors, and the timeless aroma of parathas sizzling in ghee. To her, this was Delhi at its rawest, its most beautiful.
A photography student from Kolkata, Aarohi had arrived in Delhi a month ago. She found the city’s chaos oddly comforting. Her current college project was titled “The Soul of Delhi,” and today, her soul-searching had brought her to Chandni Chowk.
She adjusted her dupatta, raised her camera, and began framing shots — a chaiwala pouring steaming tea into kulhads, an elderly man reading an Urdu newspaper outside Karim’s, and children laughing as they chased pigeons near Jama Masjid.
“You’re capturing the right kind of wrong,” said a voice behind her.
Startled, Aarohi turned around. A tall guy with windswept hair and an easy smile stood beside her, holding a sketchpad. He wore a faded black kurta, and his eyes had the calm intensity of a winter river.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Your shots. They’re messy, but honest. Raw. Like this place.”
“And you are?”
“Zaid. Zaid Mirza. Local wanderer, part-time poet, full-time observer. And you?”
“Aarohi.”
They exchanged a smile that hovered just at the edge of friendship.
He gestured to a nearby bench under a neem tree. “Coffee? The tiny stall there makes the best in Delhi. No filters, just like your photos.”
Intrigued, she followed him.
They sat, sipping coffee as the city bustled around them. Their conversation jumped from old Delhi architecture to Bengali cinema, from Sufi poetry to the best momo places in Delhi.
As the sun dipped, turning the red sandstone of Jama Masjid golden, Zaid took out his sketchbook.
“May I?” he asked.
She nodded.
He sketched her — quick, confident lines that caught her thoughtful eyes and camera-creased smile.
He tore out the page and handed it to her.
“A souvenir. For your Delhi collection.”
She looked at it, then at him.
“Maybe Delhi does have a soul.”
“It does,” he said. “Sometimes, it shows up when two strangers meet.”
The week after their first meeting, Aarohi and Zaid fell into a pattern. Every Thursday evening, they would meet near Red Fort or at the steps of Jama Masjid. It was an unspoken agreement, tender and natural.
This time, they met near the fountain in Chandni Chowk, where Zaid had a story to tell — about a Mughal princess who once escaped the palace to buy bangles from this very market. Aarohi countered with a story of her grandmother’s secret meetings with her grandfather behind the Ghats of Kolkata.
They walked past Fatehpuri Masjid, devouring piping hot jalebis, laughing about how Delhi’s food could replace therapy.
“I think you like Delhi more than Kolkata now,” Zaid teased.
Aarohi raised her eyebrows. “Let’s not go that far. But maybe I’m starting to see it with softer eyes.”
He led her to Gali Paranthe Wali. The old shops were still bustling, the air fragrant with ghee and pickles. They sat down, shared a paneer paratha, and talked about art and absurdities.
Zaid spoke of his father, once a classical musician, now a recluse. Aarohi opened up about her mother’s desire to see her married before turning twenty-five.
As they left the gali, the sky had turned a soft mauve, and the lights flickered on, one by one, like shy fireflies.
Aarohi took a candid photo of Zaid mid-laugh.
“Stop freezing me in time,” he said.
“I’m not freezing. I’m preserving.”
“That’s worse,” he smiled.
They stood by a chai stall near Town Hall. The crowd blurred into the background as the world narrowed to just the two of them.
“I never thought I’d find a muse in Chandni Chowk,” Aarohi whispered.
Zaid looked at her, eyes gentle. “And I never thought I’d meet someone who sees the city like I do. Through stories.”
The moment lingered. Words unsaid curled around them like steam from their teacups.
It began with a drizzle and ended in a downpour.
That Sunday, they had planned to meet at Daryaganj Book Market — a ritual for Delhi bibliophiles. Aarohi arrived early, wrapped in a thin white kurta, her dupatta doubling as a hood. The monsoon clouds loomed low, and the air smelled of wet ink and paper.
She browsed the stalls, flipping through worn-out editions of Ruskin Bond and Mahadevi Verma, when she heard footsteps behind her.
Zaid arrived, holding a newspaper over his head, soaked from the walk.
“I warned you about Delhi’s monsoon,” he said, grinning.
“I packed my umbrella. Left it in the auto.”
They huddled beneath a tarpaulin tent, surrounded by towers of books. The seller offered them chai, and they accepted gratefully.
They sat cross-legged on an old mat, flipping through books, occasionally reading aloud passages that made them laugh or pause in thought.
Zaid found an old Urdu poetry collection.
“Do you read it?” Aarohi asked.
“I live it,” he replied.
As the rain grew louder, they found shelter in the nearby Golcha Cinema corridor. Water dripped from their clothes, but their spirits stayed buoyant.
“This place has seen lovers since forever,” Zaid said.
“Are we lovers?” Aarohi asked suddenly.
The question hung in the moist air.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned closer.
“I think we’re somewhere between stories and silence.”
She looked at him, rain clinging to her lashes.
“That’s poetic. And frustrating.”
He smiled.
“Come,” he said, pulling her into the rain.
They ran through the puddles, laughing, slipping, drenched to their bones. Aarohi clicked photos mid-run, capturing the blur of joy.
When they reached the steps of Jama Masjid again, breathless and soaked, Zaid gently touched her face.
“Maybe we are,” he whispered.
It was a Thursday, but this time they didn’t meet in Old Delhi.
Aarohi had invited Zaid to Lodhi Garden — her favorite retreat in South Delhi. The lush greenery, old tombs, and peaceful silence were a contrast to their usual chaos.
She arrived with a small paper bag.
“Today,” she declared, “we’re going analog.”
She handed him a notebook and a fountain pen.
“We write letters to each other. In real-time. No speaking.”
Zaid chuckled. “You’re mad.”
“Possibly. But let’s try.”
They sat on a bench under a gulmohar tree. She wrote the first note:
“What would you say to me if you could only speak once today?”
He read it, smiled, and wrote back:
“That your eyes make even tombs feel alive.”
Aarohi bit her lip, cheeks warm. She scribbled:
“Stop flirting. This is supposed to be profound.”
He replied:
“Profoundly, I think I’m falling for you.”
She stared at the words, heart stammering.
She wrote nothing in return for a while. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a camera roll canister.
“Your turn,” she whispered, breaking the rule.
Zaid opened the canister. Inside was a printed photo of him — the candid she’d taken in Chandni Chowk.
“Keep it,” she said. “For when you doubt if you’re worth capturing.”
He looked at her, a soft ache in his chest.
“I don’t doubt it when I’m with you.”
They sat in silence after that. The birds sang above, the tombs basked in filtered sunlight, and the past and present embraced.
As they left, she slipped the notebook into his satchel.
“A story in letters,” she said.
“And a chapter yet to be written,” he replied.
Their fingers brushed.
This time, they didn’t pull away.
The scent of roasting spices and the faint echo of qawwalis drifted through the narrow lanes of Nizamuddin. As dusk settled, the area transformed into a vibrant tapestry of lights, sounds, and stories — an ancient neighborhood where time felt elastic, folding past and present together like the intricate folds of a fine silk shawl.
Aarohi stepped out of the metro station, clutching her camera bag close, feeling the pulse of the city’s old heart beat stronger here. It was her first visit to Nizamuddin, invited by Zaid to meet him for an evening that promised more than just a stroll.
The sky was a bruised shade of purple, the call to prayer blending seamlessly with the distant chorus of vendors closing their shops. The narrow bylanes smelled of cardamom, fried sweets, and fresh mint. Children darted through crowds chasing each other with gleeful abandon, their laughter a sharp contrast to the quiet reverence of the shrine nearby.
Zaid was waiting near the entrance of the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, wearing a loose kurta and a light shawl draped around his shoulders. His eyes sparkled when he saw Aarohi, and his smile held a promise—a silent understanding that the night was theirs to explore.
“Welcome to my city’s soul,” he said, offering his arm.
She took it without hesitation.
They wandered through the bustling market, passing stalls that sold everything from antique calligraphy pens to handmade leather journals. Zaid led her to a tiny tea stall tucked between an old spice shop and a sweetmeat vendor. The chai was thick and sweet, brewed with cardamom and ginger, served in delicate clay cups that warmed her hands.
“Here,” Zaid said, “you taste Delhi.”
Aarohi sipped the chai slowly, savoring the blend of flavors and the warmth spreading through her chest. Around them, the evening crowd thickened, the call to qawwali practice swelling from the dargah’s courtyard.
They found a quiet corner under a large banyan tree where old men played chess on worn wooden boards. The evening breeze rustled the leaves, and the fading sun painted golden edges on the ancient stones.
“I’ve always believed,” Zaid began softly, “that places have memories. Nizamuddin remembers centuries of love, devotion, heartbreak, and healing.”
Aarohi nodded, her eyes scanning the intricate patterns carved into the dargah walls, stories etched in stone.
He pulled out a small notebook, the same she had seen him carry before. Inside, pages were filled with sketches, poems, and snippets of thoughts—a visual diary of his soul.
“May I?” he asked, holding the notebook toward her.
She took it gently, flipping through the pages until a poem caught her eye:
“In the crowded silence of these lanes,
Where faith and longing intertwine,
I find your shadow beside mine,
A whispered promise in the call to prayer.”
Her cheeks flushed as she met his gaze.
“That’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Zaid smiled, his eyes reflecting the flickering street lamps.
“Shall we?” he said, standing and offering his hand.
They walked toward the dargah courtyard where the qawwali session was about to begin. The musicians, dressed in simple whites, took their places. The harmonium’s first notes floated through the air, followed by the soulful cries of the lead singer.
Aarohi felt herself drawn into the music’s embrace, the haunting melodies wrapping around her heart. She glanced at Zaid, who was watching her with a tenderness that made the world outside disappear.
As the music swelled, their hands found each other, fingers intertwining like old roots beneath the earth.
Time slowed.
The night held them, two souls amidst the ancient stones and sacred songs, a story written in the language of love and longing under the Nizamuddin sky.
***
The sun dipped low behind the domed skyline of Delhi, casting an amber glow over Safdarjung’s Tomb — a place less chaotic than Humayun’s, more silent than the Dargah, and steeped in a melancholy that suited Zaid’s mood perfectly.
He waited by the rusted iron gate, leaning against a tree, his hands tucked into his pockets. There was a storm inside him, one he hadn’t let out yet — not to Aarohi, not even to himself. Today, he would.
Aarohi arrived a few minutes late, her white kurti fluttering slightly in the evening breeze. She carried her camera, of course, but also something else: worry. She could feel something was off with Zaid — he hadn’t messaged her all day, and when he did, the message was a simple:
“Meet me at Safdarjung. 6 PM. I need to show you something.”
She approached him quietly, but he sensed her before she spoke.
“Hey,” she said, softly.
He turned, offered a small smile, and motioned toward the tomb. “Let’s walk.”
The air was warm, but there was a strange chill between them.
The mausoleum stood tall in fading light — a structure forgotten by many, but not by Zaid. The dry leaves crunched under their feet as they walked in silence through the long central corridor, flanked by sandstone arches and shadows that seemed to listen.
Aarohi finally broke the silence. “What’s this about, Zaid?”
He looked at her. For a moment, his eyes held back something, then he let go.
“I come here often. When things feel… too heavy.”
She studied his face. “What’s heavy now?”
He stopped walking and leaned against one of the arches. The dying light painted half his face golden, the other half in shadow.
“I didn’t tell you everything about my past,” he began, voice low. “I thought I had made peace with it. But something’s been pulling me back here lately.”
Aarohi stepped closer, waiting.
Zaid exhaled deeply. “Two years ago, I was engaged.”
Aarohi felt a wave of heat wash over her chest. “Oh.”
“She was a poet. Mehreen. We used to come here every Sunday. She said Safdarjung felt like it had stopped aging… just like love does when it dies young.”
“What happened?” Aarohi asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“She died. Road accident near Mehrauli. I was ten minutes behind her in traffic.” His voice cracked. “I saw the ambulance. Didn’t know it was for her.”
Aarohi’s throat tightened. She hadn’t expected this — not this depth of grief buried beneath Zaid’s calm exterior.
“I couldn’t come here for months. Then one day, I did. And I found something,” he said, reaching into his sling bag and pulling out a folded piece of old parchment.
He handed it to her.
It was a page from a diary. Handwritten. A poem.
“If my absence tastes like silence,
Let it settle on your tongue.
Love me through the memory,
Not through what’s left unsung.”
“She wrote this?” Aarohi asked.
“She left her journal in my drawer the night before she died. I never opened it until I came back here.”
Aarohi sat down on the steps near the edge of the tomb. “You’ve carried this alone all this time?”
“I didn’t want to bring the weight into something new,” Zaid said, sitting beside her. “But then I realized… if this is going to be something real with you, I owe you the whole truth.”
Aarohi took his hand, her voice calm but firm. “I don’t want you to edit yourself for me, Zaid. Grief doesn’t mean there’s no space for new love.”
They sat quietly for a while. The sound of a distant azaan drifted through the air.
“You know,” she said, “there’s something poetic about love surviving places. About memories clinging to walls like ivy.”
Zaid smiled. “She would’ve liked you.”
Aarohi leaned her head on his shoulder. “I like her too.”
They stayed there as the sky turned indigo, and a few stars began to pierce through the veil of Delhi’s pollution. No more secrets. Only silence, memory, and the strange comfort of knowing someone had chosen you — even with a heart that had once been shattered.
As they walked out, Aarohi stopped and raised her camera.
“Hold still,” she said.
Zaid stood against the arch, his silhouette framed by the tomb’s grand architecture behind him.
The shutter echoed gently through the quiet courtyard.
She looked at the photo and smiled. “Now Safdarjung has a new secret.”
The morning sun crept over Delhi like a reluctant secret, slipping slowly between the gaps of Connaught Place’s colonial architecture. It was one of those rare crisp winter mornings — a soft fog still lingering near the ground, the kind that made tea taste better and conversations deeper.
Aarohi sat at a café table in A Block, stirring her coffee absentmindedly. She had come early — too early — but she didn’t mind. This part of Delhi always felt like a memory she hadn’t made yet. The circular roads, the gleaming white columns, the maze of bookstores and old cinemas — CP held a strange symmetry, a pattern of loops that reminded her of life itself.
Zaid was late.
He wasn’t usually late.
She looked up each time the café door opened, and just as the unease began to settle in her stomach, he appeared — slightly breathless, his scarf flapping loosely around his neck, and a faint smile playing on his lips.
“Traffic,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her.
“You live five metro stations away.”
He chuckled. “And yet, Delhi finds a way.”
She smiled despite herself.
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the early crowd trickle past the windows — students with backpacks, elderly couples holding hands, dogs chasing pigeons.
Zaid pulled out a worn envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked, eyebrow raised.
“A game.”
She opened it. Inside were three small cards. On each was scribbled a clue.
Clue 1: “Where stories sleep between dusty shelves — the ghost of an author once forgot his way.”
Clue 2: “Where chai is not just a drink but a love language.”
Clue 3: “A whisper of cinema, a kiss of old reels — behind the curtain of Regal’s past.”
She looked up, confused. “Are these riddles?”
Zaid grinned. “Today, we play Delhi like a board game. You solve a clue. I take you there. At the end… you’ll find something.”
“What will I find?”
“That’s for the city to tell.”
1st Stop: The Bookstore
Aarohi pondered the first clue, then her face lit up.
“‘Where stories sleep’… must be Daryaganj’s Sunday Book Bazaar?” she guessed.
“Nope. We need something walkable. Try again.”
She glanced out the window, then said, “Bahrisons?”
He shook his head, still smiling.
And then she got it: “The Oxford Bookstore! On the outer circle!”
Zaid stood up. “Let’s go.”
Inside Oxford, the scent of coffee and paper overwhelmed the senses. Aarohi wandered through shelves stacked with titles both new and old, fingers brushing over spines like braille.
A young attendant recognized Zaid and smiled.
“You’re back,” he said.
“I come here when I need to remember who I was,” Zaid said softly.
They paused at the poetry section. Aarohi found a tiny, dog-eared copy of Neruda’s Love Sonnets and tucked it under her arm.
Zaid, meanwhile, led her to a corner shelf with secondhand editions.
“Read the opening lines,” he said, handing her a slim volume.
“Delhi hides its lovers in plain sight, folding their stories into alleys and arches…”
It was a journal — self-published, no title. Just reflections.
“Yours?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I leave one here every January,” he said. “To see if someone finds it.”
2nd Stop: The Tea Room
Clue two led them to a tiny, decades-old teahouse called Wagh Bakri Chai Lounge nestled between Blocks N and P.
It was quiet, almost invisible to the usual crowd.
Inside, they sat by a window, ordered masala chai and bun-maska. The table wobbled, and the walls had paint peeling off in corners, but it felt right.
“Why tea?” she asked, sipping.
“Because in Delhi, tea isn’t just a drink. It’s a way to pause. To breathe.”
She watched him for a moment. There was something timeless about him in that moment — like he belonged in black-and-white photographs.
Then she pulled out her phone and showed him something.
“I took this yesterday,” she said. It was a photo of Zaid, standing beneath the arch at Safdarjung, his scarf blowing in the wind.
He stared at it.
“You make the ordinary look sacred,” he murmured.
She smiled. “That’s what you do with words.”
They sat there, sipping, as the world outside whirred and spun, but their table — their little universe — stood still.
3rd Stop: The Cinema That Was
The final clue was the trickiest. Regal Cinema had shut down years ago, yet its façade still stood, a ghost of its former self.
They walked to it — the shuttered entrance, posters fading behind glass, dust settled like quiet grief.
“I saw my first film here,” Zaid said. “With my mother. Dil Se. I didn’t understand it. But the music stayed.”
Aarohi stared at the locked doors. “It looks… abandoned.”
“Like most things that once mattered,” he whispered.
Then he turned to her.
“Close your eyes.”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“Because now it’s time for the final piece.”
She closed them.
Zaid took her hands, guided her a few steps back toward the alley behind the building. The scent of mildew, old wires, and faint jasmine filled the air.
“Okay,” he said. “Open.”
She did.
They stood in a graffiti-laced courtyard. On the back wall of the Regal building, there was a massive black-and-white mural.
It was her.
One of the photographs she had taken — a profile shot of herself taken unknowingly in the rear mirror of an auto, wind in her hair.
“But… how?” she gasped.
“You shared this photo on your blog six months ago,” Zaid said. “I found it. And I knew. That face — that moment — it was Delhi. And I asked a friend to turn it into something permanent.”
Aarohi was speechless. She walked up to the wall, her fingers hovering just above the painted surface.
“I wanted you to see,” Zaid continued, “that you don’t just capture Delhi. You’ve become a part of it.”
Tears welled up in her eyes — the kind that sting but feel beautiful.
She turned to him. “You did all this… for me?”
“I did it for the story we’re writing together.”
She kissed him then — softly, urgently — against the mural that was once a wall, against a city that kept folding them into its rhythm, again and again.
Later That Night, They returned to the café, hands intertwined. The city had darkened into a sea of yellow bulbs and taillights, and Connaught Place glowed like a carousel that never stopped spinning.
Zaid ordered two steaming plates of momos from a vendor by the side.
“Do you think,” he asked, as they sat on the edge of the Central Park fountain, “that cities remember their lovers?”
Aarohi smiled. “Only the ones who leave marks.”
They watched the fountain change colors — blue, red, green. The city whirred on. But in that circle — their own little loop — time curled up quietly and rested.
***
The next chapter of Aarohi and Zaid’s story didn’t begin with a clue or a café — it began with silence.
Aarohi hadn’t texted since the night at Connaught Place. Zaid had waited — first an hour, then a day. He told himself it was fine. That maybe the moment had been too much too soon. That maybe the kiss by the Regal mural had pressed some invisible bruise.
And then, three days later, a message:
“Meet me tomorrow. 11 AM. Deer Park Gate.”
No emojis. No explanations. Just a dot in time.
Zaid reached Hauz Khas Village early, walking past the graffiti-covered cafes, quiet art galleries, and shuttered boutiques. The lane smelled of last night’s beer and today’s cold air — a smell he somehow found comforting.
At the gate to Deer Park, he spotted Aarohi leaning against the railing, scarf tight around her neck, eyes staring into the mist.
She didn’t smile immediately. Just looked at him — as if studying the difference between memory and reality.
“You came,” she said softly.
“You called.”
They walked in silence down the winding path into the park. The winter fog wrapped around them like a secret. Peacocks strutted nearby. The old tombs of medieval kings loomed in the background, stoic and still.
“Zaid,” she began, after several minutes of walking, “do you ever feel… scared?”
He looked at her. “Scared of what?”
“Of wanting too much.”
He was quiet for a moment. “All the time.”
“I haven’t told anyone this,” she continued, her breath fogging the air. “But I’ve always kept things half-written. Letters. Stories. Relationships. Because I’m afraid… if I finish them, they’ll end.”
He nodded, slowly. “Maybe that’s why Delhi works for people like us. It never ends. It just changes shapes.”
They sat on a bench by the lake, watching the water shimmer through the mist.
“I came here every Sunday as a kid,” she said. “With my father. We used to feed the ducks, then eat aloo tikkis outside Green Park gate. He used to say this place had ‘layers’ — like a paratha.”
Zaid chuckled. “Your father was a philosopher.”
She smiled, finally.
Then added, “He passed away four years ago.”
Zaid’s smile faded, replaced by quiet understanding.
“This is the first time I’ve come back here since,” she said.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t offer hollow sympathy. He just reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded paper crane.
“You carry origami around?” she asked, confused.
“I make one every time I feel something I can’t explain.”
He placed it gently in her hand.
“It’s yours now.”
They wandered deeper into the old stone structures — Hauz Khas Fort, where lovers carved initials into ancient walls and tourists clicked selfies between centuries.
In a ruined jharokha overlooking the reservoir, Aarohi stopped.
“You know what scares me the most, Zaid?”
He turned to her.
“That we’re becoming a chapter. A beautiful one — but still, just a chapter. Something you’ll write about someday, with metaphors and sepia tones.”
He stepped closer. “What if we don’t stop?”
She looked into his eyes — earnest, amber, unwavering.
“Delhi is full of ruins,” she said. “It remembers things too much. I don’t want to be remembered. I want to be lived.”
Zaid reached out and gently touched her cheek.
“Then let’s stop writing,” he whispered. “And start living.”
And right there, under the arch of a forgotten sultan’s tomb, she kissed him again.
This time, it wasn’t cinematic.
It was messy, soft, real.
The kiss of two people who were afraid — and choosing each other anyway.
They found a rooftop café in Hauz Khas Village overlooking the lake. The sunlight had finally begun to warm the day, burning away the mist.
Over pasta and coffee, they talked about small things — their worst school memories, favorite street food, irrational fears (Zaid was terrified of pigeons; Aarohi had an inexplicable hatred for velvet fabric).
Aarohi took out her camera and clicked a candid shot of Zaid as he stirred sugar into his cappuccino.
“You know,” she said, “the best portraits are the ones people never prepare for.”
Zaid leaned in. “That’s why I fell for you. You don’t prepare. You just arrive. Fully. As you are.”
She looked away, suddenly shy.
As they stepped out of the café, a sudden drizzle began — unexpected, uninvited, but oddly poetic.
They ran into the park again, laughing like children. Zaid slipped once on wet mud and dragged Aarohi down with him. They landed in a heap, soaked and breathless.
She lay there for a moment, rain tapping on her forehead, looking up at the sky.
“I haven’t laughed like this in years,” she said.
“Then maybe,” Zaid replied, “we’re doing something right.”
Before they left, Aarohi asked him to wait by the tomb.
She ran ahead to a place near the back wall, crouched, and pulled out a small notebook wrapped in plastic — hidden under a flat stone.
She handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“Letters,” she said. “To someone I hadn’t met yet.”
He opened the first page.
“Dear you — I don’t know if you drink tea or coffee. But I hope you understand quiet.”
Zaid read a few lines, then looked up.
“You wrote these for me?”
She nodded. “I didn’t know your name. But I knew you’d exist.”
He closed the book gently. Then placed it inside his jacket.
“I’ll write back,” he said. “Every time I’m too full to speak.”
They ended the day back at Green Park Metro, standing beneath a streetlamp flickering like a heartbeat.
Zaid held her hand.
“Let’s not talk about tomorrow,” she said.
“Let’s not,” he agreed.
They kissed again — one more time, as autos honked, and street dogs barked, and Delhi pulsed around them.
Aarohi climbed into an auto, her scarf trailing behind her like a poem not yet finished.
Zaid stood watching, his hands in his pockets, heart no longer in one.
And somewhere between the ruins and the lake, a pause became a promise.
Delhi has two faces. One that blinks under daylight with horns and headlines, and the other that hums quietly in the night, slipping between shadows and sodium lights. It was this version of the city — blurred, breathless — where Aarohi and Zaid’s next chapter unfolded.
It was nearing midnight on a Friday when Zaid received the message:
“If I get on the last metro from Vishwavidyalaya, will you meet me halfway?”
He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to. He grabbed his jacket, locked his door in Lajpat Nagar, and rushed toward the Central Secretariat station. The city was quiet now, but Zaid’s heartbeat was louder than the rumble of the incoming train.
Aarohi boarded the yellow line from the northern end of the city, bundled in a long grey cardigan, headphones in, listening to old ghazals she’d stolen from her father’s playlist. The train car was nearly empty, save for two college kids laughing over Instagram reels and an old man scribbling Urdu poetry on a napkin.
Zaid, meanwhile, raced the clock. The last trains from the interchange stations don’t wait for love stories. He calculated — Vishwavidyalaya to Rajiv Chowk would take 28 minutes. If she switched at Rajiv Chowk and continued south, maybe — just maybe — they could catch each other at INA. The symmetry of that thought appealed to him: meeting halfway in Delhi’s heart.
The station was mostly deserted. Just a sleepy security guard sipping chai and a couple arguing over cab fares outside the gates. And then — footsteps.
She emerged from the yellow line platform, her face lit with relief and a touch of defiance. He was already there, leaning against the railing, panting slightly from the stairs.
“You ran?” she asked.
“You texted.”
They stood there, grinning, neither asking the other why they’d come. It was enough that they had.
With metros closing for the night, they exited the station and began walking south along Aurobindo Marg. The street was still alive in pockets — chaiwalas packing up, autorickshaws dozing, the odd dog trotting along like a night-shift sentinel.
Zaid pulled out his phone, played Jagjit Singh’s “Koi Fariyaad,” and held it between them.
“This okay?” he asked.
She nodded, sliding her arm into his.
They walked in rhythm — not just to the music, but to something deeper, something that had been quietly syncing since they’d met in Old Delhi weeks ago.
Near Green Park, a tiny dhaba still had its shutters half open. They stopped, ordered parathas and chai, and sat on a plastic bench surrounded by flickering tube lights and mosquito buzz.
“Ever think about how many versions of us exist?” she asked, tearing a piece of paratha.
“Like alternate timelines?”
“No. Like — the us from last week, last year, five years ago. Do you think those versions would recognize this one? Sitting here, at midnight, drinking kadak chai under a flickering bulb?”
Zaid smiled. “I think those versions would envy us.”
It was only after the second cup of tea that Aarohi said it.
“I’m scared this city will swallow us.”
Zaid looked at her. “It won’t. Not if we leave pieces of ourselves in it. Like breadcrumbs.”
“Like memories?”
“Like promises.”
She touched his hand. “Then promise me — no matter what happens, this night stays ours.”
“Always.”
And then, in the glow of a half-dead streetlight, with the city asleep and the air wrapped in fog, they kissed — again.
Not like lovers racing against time. But like companions creating it.
He put her in a cab bound for Mukherjee Nagar. She rolled down the window, her fingers brushing his.
“Will we do this again?” she whispered.
“Every time Delhi lets us.”
And with that, the cab disappeared down the empty street, red tail-lights blinking like Morse code for ‘more to come.’
Zaid stood there until the cold made him shiver. Then he turned, hands in pockets, heart in memory, and walked back toward wherever the city would next let them meet.
Delhi’s winter is neither forgiving nor loud. It creeps in like an uninvited guest who suddenly feels like home — numbing fingertips, steaming breath, and layering the entire city in a misty hush. For Zaid and Aarohi, it brought a stillness they hadn’t known they needed.
The day after the metro night, Zaid woke up late to the sound of the pressure cooker in his neighbor’s kitchen and the fogged-up window in his bedroom. He lay in bed staring at the condensation until his phone buzzed.
Aarohi: “If you had to get lost in Delhi today, where would you go?”
His answer was instant: “Sunder Nursery.”
They met at the Lodhi Road gate around noon, scarves wound tightly, noses pink from the cold. Sunder Nursery, nestled between Nizamuddin and Humayun’s Tomb, looked like a dream that hadn’t been touched since the Mughals left.
Kids ran between hedges. Old men read Urdu newspapers. Couples took selfies beneath stone arches.
They didn’t do any of that. They simply walked.
Every ten steps, Aarohi would whisper a question: “What’s your worst fear?” “What was your first heartbreak?” “What’s the song you can’t tell people you love?”
Zaid answered them all, and then asked her back.
This was their love language: questions, silences, and the warm mist between two cold hands.
She had brought a flask — chamomile and lemongrass tea. Poured it into paper cups and handed one to him while they sat on the stone steps facing a water channel.
“Why this tea?” he asked.
“Because it reminds me of my hostel terrace. First winter in Delhi. I didn’t know anyone. Just this tea, my books, and the city.”
He sipped. “It tastes like a lullaby.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about my brewing.”
At some point, Aarohi pulled out her notebook. Not the poetry one. This was different — half planner, half dream journal.
She turned to a page titled “January Adventures.”
There were entries already:
Lodhi Garden picnic, Watch sunrise from Majnu ka Tilla, Friday night ghazal at India Habitat Centre.
“Add something,” she said.
Zaid took her pen and scribbled: “Make Delhi a third person in our story.”
She smiled and wrote under it: “Already happening.”
As the sun began to dip, they borrowed cycles and pedaled lazily toward the Lodhi Art District. The murals burst out of the walls like dreams mid-sentence — peacocks in monochrome, a blindfolded goddess, a typewriter spitting poetry.
Aarohi stopped in front of a wall that read: “We are all stories in the making.”
She turned to Zaid. “If we’re a story, what chapter are we in?”
“One we don’t want to end.”
She leaned in. “Then let’s not rush the plot.”
They ended the day at Khan Market, sharing a plate of momos and laughing at the irony — two broke hearts in the fanciest part of town.
As he walked her to the auto stand, she paused.
“Let’s not call this a date.”
“What is it then?”
“A whispered plan.”
He nodded, gently touching her scarf to fix it against the breeze. “Then let’s keep whispering.”
The auto rumbled off, and he stood among the streetlights and perfume-laced air, holding the scent of her tea and the warmth of plans not yet made.
***
The sky above Jama Masjid shimmered in twilight hues—an indigo velvet splashed with saffron and gold, as if Delhi herself was bidding farewell to two lovers born under her dome-studded skies.
It was the last day of spring.
Aarohi stood at the base of the grand staircase, her dupatta fluttering in the wind, eyes tracing the familiar curves of the sandstone minarets that had become witnesses to a thousand moments between them. Moments captured in her camera and etched deep into her chest like silver negatives.
Zaid stood beside her, unusually quiet.
The mosque’s courtyard stretched out before them, sparse at this hour, emptying after the maghrib prayer. The city felt still for once. Even the honks of Old Delhi traffic below seemed distant, like echoes from another world.
“Remember the first time we came here?” she asked, voice barely above the wind.
He nodded. “You asked if the pigeons here flew toward dreams or away from memories.”
“And you said—” she smiled, “—that they didn’t know the difference.”
Zaid exhaled deeply, and silence fell again.
Their journey had unraveled like a hidden alley of Chandni Chowk—twists, sudden light, shadows cast by domes and sudden bursts of jasmine-scented laughter. And now, they had reached the end of this gully.
Aarohi was leaving for Mumbai in three days. A new job, a new city, a promise to her younger self that had always dreamt bigger than Delhi’s skyline.
She had tried not to cry the night she told him.
He had just smiled and said, “I always knew Delhi wouldn’t be enough to hold you forever.”
But now, as they sat side by side on the mosque steps, beneath a sky darkening into velvet, they were running out of words.
Instead, they let Delhi speak.
The hum of evening traffic. The distant azaan. The flutter of pigeon wings. The smell of roasted corn from the cart down the lane.
Aarohi leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“Of what?”
“That we won’t find this again.”
Zaid stayed silent, then gently reached into his satchel. From it, he took a small black box—not velvet, not grand. Just a simple paper box bound by twine.
Inside was a silver anklet. A single ghungroo.
Aarohi blinked.
“It’s from that little store in Daryaganj,” he said. “The one where you wanted to go back but never did.”
She laughed softly, tears stinging her eyes.
“You’re the only one who listens like that.”
He smiled, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
“You don’t need to promise me anything,” he said. “Not visits, not messages, not forever.”
Her throat tightened.
“You just need to live—really live. And when you walk through any city… anywhere in the world… may the anklet remind you of one place that once knew you completely.”
She closed the box and held it to her chest like a sacred thing.
“Do you remember the poem you read me at Nizamuddin?” she asked.
Zaid nodded again.
She reached into her camera bag and pulled out a small photo book. Aarohi had designed it herself—a collage of photographs taken over the past months: chai glasses at Lodhi Garden, reflections in Hauz Khas Lake, a hand brushing against another in Mehrauli’s ruins, a blurred kiss caught in a rain-splattered mirror.
On the last page, in delicate font, she had printed the poem:
In the crowded silence of these lanes,
Where faith and longing intertwine,
I find your shadow beside mine,
A whispered promise in the call to prayer.
“I’m leaving Delhi,” she said. “But I’m not leaving you.”
Zaid’s eyes gleamed. “I never asked you to stay. I only asked you to remember.”
They stood, brushing the dust off their clothes, as the city slowly prepared for nightfall. The dome of Jama Masjid turned gold for a final moment before sinking into the dusk.
Hand in hand, they walked down the steps, into the crowd below, swallowed once more by the rhythm of the old city.
They didn’t say goodbye. They didn’t have to.
Because some love stories don’t end.
They become part of the city that gave them life.
Part of every raindrop, every chai glass, every pigeon wing that flutters above Chandni Chowk.
And so, under the ancient sky of Delhi, the chaand of Chandni Chowk stayed aglow—forever caught between memory and light.
-End-
